


Cops and Hookers

by MollyC



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, OMC - Freeform, POV Outsider, Prostitution, allusion to drug use, allusion to underage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-03
Updated: 2012-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-30 13:39:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MollyC/pseuds/MollyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem is that the kid doesn't seem to want help</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cops and Hookers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stoatsandwich](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoatsandwich/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The John](https://archiveofourown.org/works/329987) by [stoatsandwich](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoatsandwich/pseuds/stoatsandwich). 



> So...apparently stoatsandwich is my muse or something, because this is the second time I've felt the urge to write something based on her fic. You should read hers first, as this one contains significant spoilers for it.

The torn-apart murders stop, which is great; if Don Kahler never again walks into a scene that looks like a water balloon of chunky soup exploded on it, he'll be fucking ecstatic. The four that there were, though, have caused a blizzard of paperwork about as thick as the actual snow outside; it's a week and a day before Don claws his way out from under it enough to think about anything much else.

What does it is catching the news on the way home; the weather warning for overnight includes phrases like "dangerously low" and "exposed skin freezes in". Don turns left when he might otherwise turn right, because it occurs to him that this might be a good night to run Jimmy Novak in for vagrancy.

Don's known Jimmy coming on five years now, since he was in Narcotics and Jimmy was still jailbait. He never busted Jimmy for drugs, which is weird because the kid is after all a hooker--but Jimmy has plenty of other problems.

Like, he's crazy. Legitimately diagnosable: borderline personality, paranoia, visual hallucinations, the whole enchilada, though at least if he hears voices they don't tell him to do anything nasty. Naturally he refuses to take his meds even on the rare occasions that he actually has them. Don has to admit the kid's pretty good at taking care of himself; makes it hard for Don to find excuses to try and get him help. In fact the threat of taking him to the hospital is one of the few things that'll get him to spill when he's got some info he doesn't want to let go of. He's scared of it, because the doctors make him take his pills, and once tried to convince Don he could walk fine on a busted ankle to avoid going there.

Don _likes_ Jimmy, is the thing, crazy and all (he's aware the feeling isn't mutual), so when he can he picks him up, gets him coffee or a Big Mac or a place to sleep. He's never taken advantage of Jimmy's _services_ either, and not because he's blind or anything; Don's about a 1 on the Kinsey and married besides, but Jimmy's hot as hell and has a nice pawky sense of humor when Don manages to catch him relaxed enough to use it. It's just that Don's never been the kind of cop who takes it out of the streetwalkers in trade, and kind of despises those that are.

So that evening, the western sky showing its bands of cold, lucent colors, Don heads for Antoine's block. Jimmy won't thank him for cutting him out of work, but he's not likely to get a lot of customers in the kind of cold that freezes exposed skin in seconds anyway. A couple of Antoine's girls are actually out, poor bitches, though Jimmy's not in his usual spot. Don thinks hopefully that maybe Jimmy got a spot in a shelter for the night, but he stops and gets out to check. The girls make him instantaneously, of course, but one of them knows him, and she's willing to tell him No when he asks if Cas (which is the name that Jimmy uses because he's convinced "James Novak" isn't his real one) has been out tonight. The way she says it makes him pause and ask when was the last time he _was_ out. She and the other girl confer for a moment and come up with "about a week, week and a half ago". 

Don goes cold in a way that has nothing to do with the rapidly falling temperature, the sky clear as a window and the stars starting to show pitilessly sharp in it. Because the last time he saw Jimmy, a week and a half ago, the kid was being packed into an old black car by an FBI agent who'd walked into Don's investigation like he fucking owned it and produced absolutely nothing of any use.

Don slips the girls a twenty for the info and gets back into his car.

*

The next day he looks into Agent Bonham. It doesn't take long to figure out that Agent Bonham doesn't actually exist, and Don spends a solid five minutes cursing himself for a fucking moron, because the fake agent rubbed him the wrong way every second and he knew, just knew something was wrong, and he let the guy take Jimmy anyway. And now the guy's gone, and the murders have stopped. Doesn't take a genius to work that one out, which is good because Don's clearly not a genius. The only question is whether Jimmy was murder number five before "Bonham" got tired of Chicago and moved on to kill people messy somewhere else.

Don's hoping the kid got away. Jimmy's crazy, yeah, but he's smart as a whip when it comes to anything that might hurt him, always has been. But he started from handcuffed (because Don let "Bonham" handcuff him, Jesus _Christ_ , right in front of him) and that's not a good situation to try to escape from. And while Jimmy's stronger than you'd think to look at his scrawny frame, Agent Bonham was a couple inches taller and probably thirty pounds of muscle heavier, and it didn't look like gym-rat muscle either.

Days pass. There aren't any more bodies in pieces, including Jimmy's. Don tries to relax. Whenever he has time he goes by the places Jimmy hangs out (hung out, he catches himself thinking, and shakes his head sharply) and asks for news. He puts "Bonham's" description out, officially and unofficially, but doesn't get much back. No one's seen Jimmy since the night after the last body was found--though that piece of news eases Don's conscience a bit, as Jimmy was apparently spotted with a trick who wasn't Agent Bonham. Means if the kid got killed, it wasn't strictly speaking Don's fault.

But it also doesn't mean "Bonham" didn't come back and pick him up again later.

*

One way and another a month goes by, and Don can no longer fool himself that he has any hope Jimmy's still alive. Even if "Bonham" didn't kill him, Jimmy's fallen off the grid; Antoine has even had his girls filter down the block to cover his old spot. Don supposes it's possible he's not dead, but he sure isn't in Chicago anymore. And Don knows what life's like for the street hookers; given Jimmy's age the first time he showed up, it's amazing he lasted as long as he did.

Don goes to Saint Mary of the Angels, one Thursday after his shift, and hears the Mass. He doesn't go up for Communion because he hasn't confessed in months, but the words of the ritual are comforting. Afterwards, as people filter out around him, he stays in the pew, looking at the altar and the stained-glass windows and thinking. Most everyone's gone by the time Don gets up and goes to the rows of candles.

As he lights one, he says, "Jimmy, I hope it's better wherever you are." He pauses, shrugs--can't hurt anything now, after all. "Cas, I mean."

Then he turns up his collar against the chill and heads for home.

**Author's Note:**

> The first person to identify the brief shoutout to my other fandom gets a short fic written to order.


End file.
